Users working with multiple wireless devices, such as wireless input devices, in a collaborative environment may wish to use such devices with multiple computing devices in order to provide inputs or data to various computing devices, such as a smart phone, a desktop computer, a tablet computer, etc. Working with multiple wireless input devices and computing devices may require quickly switching connections between wireless devices and computing devices to leverage the strengths of particular wireless device-computing device pairings. For example, a user may use a Bluetooth®-enabled stylus input device in an application such as Adobe® Ideas® being executed on a tablet computer to sketch a drawing. The user may then need to use the same stylus in an application on a different computing device, such as an instance of Adobe® Ideas® on another tablet computer.
While the wireless connectivity capabilities of wireless devices and computing devices aids in portability and collaboration with other users, managing connections may prove to be a hindrance for some users and applications, particularly for users in environments where multiple wireless input devices are discoverable by computing devices. Pairing operations are required for certain wireless devices, such as those supporting the Bluetooth® 2.0 or 3.0 specifications. For example, in cases where multiple Bluetooth®-enabled styli are in range of a computing device, a user of the computing device may need to manually select a preferred stylus to connect to. Similarly, the ability to use a wireless input device on multiple computing devices, such as tablet computers, desktop computers, and laptop computers, is sometimes hindered by the need to manually pair and connect the wireless device to the computing devices.
The Bluetooth® 4.0 specification includes a low power mode that simplifies use of low bandwidth wireless devices. Part of this specification known as Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) or Bluetooth® Smart eliminates the need to pair devices prior to use. With BLE and Bluetooth® Smart, wireless devices advertise their availability and a host computing device can then connect without user interaction. While such automatic connections eliminate the need for pairing, they can create difficulties where multiple in-range input devices are advertising at the same time. For example, such automatic connections may prove to be a hindrance to keeping a reliable connection between a host and a particular stylus in cases where the host connects with one of many available styli.